Chapter 15 Cam
CAM
Finally.
I don’t know why it took me so long to get here. Nor can I understand why I struggled to figure out how to say what I’ve been trying to voice for so many fucking months.
It shouldn’t have taken waking up in Drew’s bed, with my arms wrapped around his fiancée, his baby kicking against my hand, to finally make me realize why everything I’ve painted has felt so fucking wrong.
But it did.
The moment I felt that tiny little foot press into my palm, I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I needed to say. And it needed to happen right away.
I move like a man possessed because that’s what I am.
Only instead of being caught in an endless loop of sadness, that soul-crushing, monstrous force that seemed to churn and churn, spit me out, then suck me back into it again, I’ve finally gotten my head above water.
I’m consumed by the overwhelming need to get this out now that I understand.
All I’ve thought about is the death of everything I loved so much—Drew, my relationship with Mom, and this obsession with Ivy that only brought so much pain.
But that kick felt like life.
Because that’s what it is.
That little girl is Drew.
And Drew loved life and all the things in it.
He fought day in and day out for other people’s lives. To save them. To ensure their families never suffered the way we all are now. He loved even the simplest things—one in particular that we always shared.
The reason every time I picked up a brush and put paint on canvas has been so frustrating, so infuriating, was that I’ve been trying to tell the wrong story.
I’ve been seeing the wrong thing.
First, it was only Ivy…
Then Drew…
But it was the wrong Drew.
And now that it’s so clear, I can’t stop.
I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
The image flows out of me so fast, so freely, that I don’t even have to think about it. Because I’ve lived it. We lived it.
Black and white spreads across the pale bricks of the side of the building with focused, broad strokes and a steady hand…
It blends together into varying shades of gray, creating dimension that captures the memory so vividly that it could have happened yesterday instead of over twenty years ago.
The car headlights illuminate my progress in the otherwise darkened lot.
Cold wind blows across my exposed skin, sending my hair flying wildly around my face, but I can’t even feel the chill.
The sounds of North Philly after midnight fill my ears—occasional cars on the street, laughter, yelling, the bark of a dog.
So many things that could be distracting…
Yet I block it all out easily.
One hundred percent of my focus falls on this wall.
This memory.
This hope I somehow feel the more the mural comes to life.
Because that’s what I should have been doing this whole time since I lost Drew—focusing on his life. All those moments we shared that will remain embedded so deeply in my soul. Not his death and what it did to all of us.
And doing that meant going back to the beginning.
Coming here.
Doing this.
Because this was us.